:giggle: Thanks for sharing this with us.

This is retroactively my headcanon.

I like it, at least one person wanted security.

Ah snape having to deal with irrationality all the time with no escape.

Exactly. Thumbs up :-)

I can see Severus doing this. He would be quite happy to provide the absolute best defence there is available, and death is a good deterrent from going forward. He would also shake his head at Albus' idea but follow along out of necessity and such. Thanks for writing this!

Honestly I would have chosen a variety of paralytics and sedatives (or Draught of Living Death if you aren't worried someone will recognize it. That way if someone were to test them there /would/ be different things in the various bottles, as indicated by the riddle. There may even be (drugged) nettle wine where it should be, but whoever drinks from them won't be able to get through, won't be able to escape, and will still be alive and revive-able (albeit only by a Potions Master, preferably) to interrogate later about how they got as far as they did and who they were, etc. (I would also consider using muggle drugs, as Wizards wouldn't know how to detect them and /may/ be skilled enough to recognize or detect a potion, but as this is Severus filling the bottles I'd assume he has the knowledge and skills to pick something appropriate and difficult to detect.)
Snape may have even thought similarly and just called them collectively poisons or actually used poison. I can see him thinking like that when not informed that children may be coming through that we don't want dead.

Or if you really have a problem with possibly killing whoever attempts to break in, just harmless things like actual nettle wine in all the bottles, maybe laced with a variety of mild things to induce nausea, dizziness, etc. so that the entire point of the logic puzzle is to keep the intruder occupied while someone arrives to investigate the triggered alarm wards and apprehend the intruder before they try to go through the fire and get burned to death.

dumbledore is so sweet xD

Ohhh, I love it! Not at all what I expected, but I can definitely believe it of both Snape and Dumbledore!

'Living in Wizarding culture for any length of time is the surest way to eradicate one's logical reasoning skills'

Certainly seems so; the wizarding world can be pretty absurd.

Haha! Snape, the only professor besides Minerva that has any common sense. Poor guy, having to work with such foolish ppl.

Hi! Wow, your stuff is awesome! I found these stories (and you) because I was reading 'Chasing the Sun' (A ver good story) and it was mentioned.

I'm finding all the stories/rants of yours I've read to be great. It's rather funny, I was just discussing it with a friend, about the HP and the Philosopher's Stone. I was talking about all the plot holes and used the spell to open the door "Alohomora" as an example. I think it's supposed to be a third year spell? Anyway... so let's let in Third years and above to combat Fluffy? Sounds like a plan! Lord Voldy will NEVER get in there!

But yeah, awesome story :D

Aonokioku

I had wondered about this too, but I had just assumed that once these security measures were in place, they would also have to go through them to get to the stone, thus one non deadly option, though the keyed wands would have taken care of that.

As good an explanation as any, although this would make Snape as reckless as the ones who introduced the three headed dog and life-size Wizards chess piece, as there must always be a possibility of *any* student going out of bounds.

Many people think that Dumbledore wanted Harry to test his mettle against Quirrellmort but I'm not sure I concur with that. I think I've come to believe that Dumbledore's plan was in what he said to Harry: "Men have wasted away before it." He wanted Quirrell to find it, and be trapped by it until Dumbledore returned. (That is not to say, it's a good plan, mind you, but if Harry had not involved himself, how would Quirrell have been trapped - the mirror itself must have been the trap.)

Then again, sometimes, I think we all try to rationalise these children's stories too much. But it's such good fun.

Good characterisation for another interesting one-shot.

Nice. Exactly the Snape we like to see.